The custom cabinet maker isn't installing the cabinets they made?

My same question . Usually the cabinet maker has an installer they work with.

The installer became ill and I really want to move forward.

I wouldn’t want anyone to install custom cabinets unless he works directly for the cabinet maker. My cabinet maker watched every cabinet go up. Imagine something doesn’t fit just so? What would you do if the finish gets a scratch during installation? Who is responsible for adjusting the drawer close? Haste makes waste.

Didn't your quote include installation? I had custom cabinets and the price was inclusive of installation.

Like others wrote, this is something that the cabinet maker should be taking care of. He must have contacts in the trade to hire people he feels comfortable using. How is he going to proceed in the future if he has no installation team.

It takes some care but it's not Rocket Surgery.

https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/how-to-install-cabinets/

Start at 20% of the cost of the cabinets and go up from there. It’s priced by difficulty. The number of cabinets, the number and type of moldings, the waviness of the walls and how much the floor slopes. How many extended stiles have to be scribed. Much of how it’s priced is not likely to be available to a 3rd party, unless your cabinet maker created an inventory list for parts, in addition to job elevations and specialty install instructions.

Cabinet installs have to be matched to the known and demonstrated skills of the installer. A low level installer who doesn’t understand how to shim or gang them together can ruin 100k of custom cabinets in a heartbeat. A great installer can take 10K of stock cabinets and make them look like 50K. Cabinet installers should not be handymen, or general contractors. Even finish contractors may not have developed the patience and skills needed to do the job correctly.

WAIT. The cabinet maker and his installer have an established relationship. This relationship ensures that, should problems arise, they will work together to fix the issue...in other words, you will not be forced into acting as the mediator.

There are way too many variables for anyone to say how much labor will be.

I also agree with the others. If he is ill, how is he making your cabinets?? Is he a one man show or does he have a finish carpenter working with him? Did he say how long he may be unavailable?

Sorry for all the questions but I would see when someone may actually be available to install your cabinets vs when your guy gets better. Good installers should be booked way out right now with the amount of business out there.

Good luck!

Thank you - this is very helpful info. The installer has the virus and while I hope he recovers well and soon, I don’t really want him over any time soon. Thus why I’ve looked for alternative help. Prices have been up to double what the cabinetmaker quoted. I took delivery of the cabinets and then found out the poor man was ill.

Now I’m also learning about shims - where one installer said he would use pine shims, I’m also hearing they should be vinyl or plastic.

I was also told once the stone is installed, the shims may not be necessary? I fully want them installed right and outside of my cabinetmaker’s fellow, it’s hard to know who to trust.

Does your cabinet maker have an alternate installer, or did they provide instructions for the install? They made the cabinets, they should be able to answer some of these questions.

Once he recovers, one less thing to worry about, at least for the next 90 days or so. And circus monkeys hit the nail on the head. We have IKEA cabinets which are generally very straightforward to install, but we had super experienced person, and the number of places in our (small) kitchen I can look around and appreciate where he figured something out just so, and the details he took care of. Makes all the difference. Huge difference (and that was his first IKEA kitchen).

"It’s priced by difficulty."

NMCNMM:

True, but cabinets are simply inanimate objects. The problems start with the customers and your post fails to mention the most important part of any remodel job, which is accurately assessing the fussiness and sophistication level of your potential customer.

A good installer will try to enter the home through the garage door. If the epoxy floor is cleaner than the dishes in his cupboards, the tools on the wall in perfect position, and he's asked to remove his shoes before entering the home, the cabinet installation price just skyrocketed. Throw some mask-wearing Covid nuttiness in the mix and we're on our way to the stratosphere if he even takes the job at all.

The guys who installed the small/medium IKEA kitchen two doors down from me at the vacant gut remodel charged 4K.

"Throw some mask-wearing Covid nuttiness in the mix and we're on our way to the stratosphere"

Actually, good friends of mine caught Covid from their contractor. The wife had to go to the hospital and was there for a week. The family was terrified. @Joseph Corlett, LLC - you say mask-wearing raises the price of kitchen renovations. But that is you. To @ds356 and any others reading this thread, please do not think that if you ask your contractor to wear a mask, that will raise the price of the job. It will not, except for those like @Joseph Corlett, LLC. Would you want that person inside your home for hours who has been on multiple jobs in multiple homes without wearing a mask?

Things can be nutty and necessary. I don't think Joseph Corlett ever said to skip the PPE, only that it adds an extra layer to the job.

Either way, in this case it's a matter of the devil you know vs the devil you don't know. The custom installer we're pretty sure will do a good job with the installer, but install has to wait for them to get better (OP has stated disinterest in this). A new, unaffiliated installer could also be good, but likely doesn't have direct experience with this maker's cabinets, and install has to wiggle into their schedule (could be shorter could be longer than original installer's recovery).

In my opinion, if we're only worried about COVID, the one recovering is probably actually as safe or safer, since they're going to have to be definitely negative before they can get back to work; the general public might or might not get tested, though could probably be vaccinated at this point.

As for price, for the same quality/skill, I would expect an affiliated installer to be less than an unaffiliated installer. The original installer was, I assume, part of the original bid, so the OP should know that price if the wait can be tolerated. All other installers are going to be separate, new bids, as they are taking on a new job, not finishing an existing one. They have to want to take on the project and have said project be worth the he trip. We don't even know the size of the project or local pricing, so hard to give much on actual numbers, but it's definitely a case where it's more expensive to call the trade people twice to get two jobs done than it is to get them done with one call (you're paying the 'walk in the door' fee twice).

Just wait the two weeks. It's not like he is contagious after that. Are you in a big rush?

FWIW, I am having remodeling done and every single worker has a mask on when he comes to do work. This is just a given and I am not particularly paranoid since I am fully inoculated. I had my HVAC serviced and the workers had masks on. it is not something I am requesting and I am shocked that someone thinks that following current CDC guidelines inside is crazy. Also most workers wore the n95 masks even before the pandemic when they were working in my place for their own safety from construction dust and debris.

I also don't understand the comment about "mask-wearing Covid nuttiness" and why it would increase the cost of an install. Disposable surgical masks are readily available and very cheap. In the past Joseph has displayed his political orientation, and this is another example of it.

So, to the OP, don't worry about this permutation.

I just want to clarify my point of view. Masks, definitely important, extra caution, important, but there is still nuttiness, some of it important, some of it not. I mean, I felt pretty crazy wiping down every surface of a grocery cart ... I'll wipe the handle when I return it as a courtesy and clean my hands now.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

“In the past Joseph has displayed his political orientation, and this is another example of it.”

@julieste, you are spot on.

Over the past several months we’ve had (and still have), all kinds of work being done on our house, both inside and out. Every single trades professional has shown up at our house masked, without being asked. It’s the norm around here, because the concern is for the well being of others, in addition to themselves. But then, I don’t live in a state where selfishness is considered a “right.”

Okay, a little explanation is in order. I get requests to don a mask on sales calls and I do so without complaint. When you ask me to put on shoe covers or remove my shoes, you're getting out there. No, we aren't working in your home with shoe covers or barefooted. We'll put a canvass down, but that's it. It's your house, but it's my job site. I run my job site as I see fit; if you don't like it, here's your deposit back.

With the three of us standing around masked, I had a lady push her husband further away during a sales presentation recently. Ding, ding, ding, nutball alert! They haven't called me back and I'm not pursuing them.

The subject of this thread are the things that raise the cost of cabinet installations. My point is that it isn't just the work involved, it's accurately assessing the PIA factor, if any, of any given customer(s).

I had a lady lie to my face about the amount of dust my installers made on a recent sink installation. It is impossible for us to make dust with our vacuum and wet polishing systems. That problem's been solved for years. Once in a while an OCDer slips past me. If I'm gonna hafta buy you a house cleaning, I need to know on the front end so I can charge your for it beforehand.

Thank you all for your help. This went in a different direction then anticipated yet very helpful with regard to cabinetmakers installer.

A little thread drift can be a good thing.